The present invention is directed to a paper product, and more particularly, to a paper product that is printed with inks in certain masking patterns to enhance the consumer""s perceived opacity of the paper product.
There are a variety of paper products including, for example, tissues, towels, wipers and the like. There are also a variety of methods of manufacturing paper products including, for example, a wet-laid product that may or may not be creped or a through-airdried product.
Traditionally, many paper products have been made using a wet-pressing process in which a significant amount of water is removed from a wet-laid web by pressing or squeezing water from the web prior to final drying. In particular, while supported by an absorbent papermaking felt, the web is squeezed between the felt and the surface of a rotating heated cylinder, such as a Yankee dryer, using a pressure roll as the web is transferred to the surface of the Yankee dryer. The dried web is then dislodged from the Yankee dryer with a doctor blade, which is known as creping. Creping serves to partially debond the dried web by breaking many of the bonds previously formed during the web-pressing stages of the process. The web may be creped dry or wet. Creping can greatly improve the feel of the web, but at the expense of a significant loss in strength.
A creping method is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,879,257, issued to Gentile et al. and assigned to the Scott Paper Company (1975), entitled xe2x80x9cAbsorbent Unitary Laminate-Like Fibrous Webs and Method for Producing Them,xe2x80x9d herein incorporated by reference. The Gentile et al. patent discloses a process of creping a base sheet, then printing a binder on one side of the base sheet, creping the base sheet again, then printing a binder on the other side of the base sheet, and then creping the base sheet a third time.
More recently, throughdrying has become an alternate means of drying paper webs. Throughdrying provides a relatively noncompressive method of removing water from the web by passing hot air through the web until it is dry. More specifically, a wet-laid web is transferred from a forming fabric to a coarse, highly permeable throughdrying fabric and retained on the throughdrying fabric until fairly dry. The resulting throughdried web is softer and bulkier than a conventionally dried creped sheet because fewer bonds are formed and because the web is less compressed. Squeezing water from the wet web is eliminated, although the use of a pressure roll to subsequently transfer the web to a Yankee dryer for creping may still be used.
The paper product itself typically has a background pattern. The background pattern imparts to the paper product a textured look and feel to the user.
Absorbency and/or strength of paper products are judged by consumers by several means including their apparent opacity. In the past, absorbency and/or strength have had some connection to opacity. This connection has been broken by recent technology.
Recent technology can produce paper products such as tissues that are more translucent or less opaque, but which are more absorbent and possess more strength than more opaque paper products. This is especially true of paper products made with the through-air drying process.
For example, because of current improvements in manufacturing paper products using the uncreped through-air drying process, paper products are being produced with less fiber material, i.e., with fewer plies and/or less basis weight. Because there is less fiber material, products are becoming more translucent or less opaque to the user or consumer. This may be problematic because, if the user sees through a paper product that is more translucent or less opaque, the user may believe, incorrectly, that paper products with less plies and smaller basis weights are not as absorbent and/or strong as products with more plies and more basis weight.
The present invention is directed to a paper product that is printed with a masking pattern. The masking pattern is such that it is not readily discernible against the background pattern printed on the paper product, yet obscures objects which may appear behind the product relative to the eye of the consumer. In this manner, the consumer perceives the paper product to have a greater opacity than the product actually has, and thereby is not misled as to its absorbency and strength.
These and other objects, advantages, and features of the present invention will be better understood upon review of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.